


Builder of Coffins

by Talented_but_Lazy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, I tried to make it like a fairytale, read notes for more information
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talented_but_Lazy/pseuds/Talented_but_Lazy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She builds coffins, for better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Builder of Coffins

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely based on 'My boy builds coffins' by Florence and the Machine  
> Edit: This was originally supposed to be a Tokyo Ghoul fanfic, with Yoriko Kosaka as the coffin maker and Touka Kirishima as the demon, but it felt too... not like them, and then I read it as my own work at a presentation, so now it is listed as 'Original'.  
> I'm not going to remove it from here for now, since the site allows original works, and I like having it here.

Once upon a time, in a village at the heart of a thick forest, there lived a beautiful girl. Her beauty was like that of a princess, with hair like liquid gold and eyes glistening like emeralds.

Unlike the other maidens in the village she cared not for the boys, nor for flowers and housework. Most of her time she spent at home, carving pieces of wood she herself brought from the nearby forest.

The adult villagers avoided this girl, their children told to stay away as well, but sometimes they'd go to her house to watch her work on her creations out of morbid curiosity.

Still the village had an unspeakable curse brought upon it: once a moon a demon appeared and demanded a sacrifice, saying it'd destroy the village should they refuse.

Many brave men and women lost their lives trying to fight the demon, but no blade nor arrow could hurt it the slightest. After every such attack, the following morning all traces of the dead men were gone. The villagers thought every time they'd been saved from the horrible creature, but it appeared again soon.

So once a month, when the moon in the sky was starting to fill up, the village's elders would gather to decide who would be the new sacrifice. Those who contributed nothing to the village were weeded out this way. The chosen one would be taken on the night of the full moon, tied up and left under a lone tree at the beginning of the forest. The demon would appear once the full moon had hidden behind clouds and take the sacrifice away. The escorts of the sacrifice would go away and nobody would speak of the missing one again.

That was how the girl lost both her parents - they could not work due to illness and were deemed a burden for the others.

She did not care, for that gave her more time and space for her work.

One day as she went to the forest to gather wood, a strange girl approached her. She had hair dark as coal and eyes like sapphires.

'What are you doing here?' The strange girl asked.

'Gathering wood.' The first girl answered and added, 'What about you?'

'Just... Taking a walk.'

'Ah, I see. Would you like to help me find wood?'

So the two girls went around the forest in search of wood, engaged in conversation, about life, about death, and so on till dusk.

The girl's strange behavior and unwillingness to do anything but carve brought the elders to choose her as the newest sacrifice to the demon. They'd given her enough chances to make things better for herself. For all they knew, she was probably a spawn of the devil herself.

A few days later, while the girl was finishing her most elaborate carving yet, two strong men knocked on her door. She met them with a smile, knife in hand, asking what was the matter.

'Put the knife down,' said the taller man.

'You were chosen as the next sacrifice to the demon.'

'Oh! Is that so?' She asked, waving the knife absent-mindedly.

'Put the knife down or we'll have to use force.'

'And what will happen to my things?' She asked, ignoring what they said.

'They'll be distributed among the other villagers as seen fit.'

'Fair enough. Can I at least take my knife and the toy I was making?' She asked, then teased, 'Come on, two big boys like you can't be scared of me, can they?'

The taller one grunted and the shorter said. 'Fine, but be quick.'

After she took her 'toy' (a tiny coffin, big enough to fit a sparrow), the two men escorted her to the lone tree in silence.

The demon appeared amongst the trees, blacker than a shadow, its face obscured.

'Here's your sacrifice, demon,' shouted the shorter man. 'Leave this village alone.'

The demon said nothing, only drawing closer to the golden-haired girl, who had long since forgotten about her work. The clouds in the sky parted and the full moon shone on the scene, making the girl gasp when she saw the demon's big red wing.

'You are no demon! You're a one-winged angel! Where is your other wing?'

The demon stopped in its tracks, then dashed towards the girl, stopping only inches away.

The two men exchanged looks. This hadn't happened before.

The demon stared at her for a few more moments, then spoke with a low voice.

'It's you. The girl in my forest.'

The girl's face lit up. 'You're the girl who helped me gather wood!'

'Yes, yes, shush. Would you like to come with me?'

The girl reached out her hand, the demon girl took it. 'Wait,' the first girl said, 'if you don't kill me, how will the sacrifice happen?'

'I don't want to kill you. Worry not about the sacrifice.'

The demon picked up the girl and in a few moments they disappeared among the trees.

The two men looked at each other, wondering what had just happened. They had escorted the sacrifices to the demon for quite a long time and nothing like this had occurred. Furthermore, what were the demon and sacrifice talking about?

While they shared their confusion, slowly heading back to the village, a one-winged shadow creeped up to them, drowning out their screams.

 

* * *

Once upon a time, in a thick forest with a village at its heart, there lived a beautiful girl. She shared her home with an angel of death, a deadly raven with a breathtaking wing.

The girl took care of their little house, keeping it clean and warm for herself and her angel. In her free time she still did what she most loved, carving big pieces of wood into beautiful coffins.

At least now her creations had a purpose: they became the final resting place for the remains of the angel's sacrifices.

Whenever she were unsatisfied, the angel would ask the girl why she insisted for her to take sacrifices and not just destroy the village that had treated both of them so poorly.

Each time the girl would say, 'I don't want you to have to dirty your hands in such a way. Besides, we'd have to move away. I like it here.'

What she wouldn't admit was that she knew making the villagers turn on each other this way was a crueller punishment for the killers of her parents.


End file.
